Chapter 10

TEN

The phone rings twice before my older brother, Tanner, picks up.

“Hey, don’t you have a game today?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m driving there now for our pregame meeting, but I needed to call you and…” My voice trails off as I figure out how to share the news.

My brothers and I have been close our whole lives. Tanner is eighteen months older than I am at twenty-nine and Taron is two years younger at twenty-five, but most of our childhoods we acted like three peas in a pod. I should’ve called him last night, but I was still reeling from Lexi’s announcement.

And how epically I fucked up our date.

“And what? You okay, Ty?”

Tanner also plays professional football, but his team doesn’t play until tomorrow, and I know he understands the caution I’ve had with women. But I have no idea how he’s going to take this news.

“Do you remember that woman I told you about back during the preseason?”

“The one who bailed on you the next morning?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure. What about her?”

I open my mouth to speak when I realize there might be an issue with my brothers and I being so close. Will he jump to the same—wrong—conclusion I did about Lexi?

“She’s pregnant,” I blurt, choosing to just rip off the Band-Aid.

There’s sputtering and choking on the other end of the line before my brother’s hoarse voice comes through my car’s speakers. “What the fuck? Give a guy some warning before you drop a bomb like that. I’d just taken a sip of water thinking you were going to tell me you ran into her again and finally got her number. I was not expecting you to tell me she’s pregnant. Damn, she moved on fast. Maybe you dodged a bullet.”

I rub my jaw, waiting for him to figure it out. It doesn’t take him long.

“Wait…are you telling me she’s pregnant with your kid?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck, man. Please let me be there when you tell Mom.”

“Fuck you.” I’m not even close to ready to tell my mom about Lexi and the baby. She’s going to have a million questions I likely can’t answer, especially with Lexi freezing me out since our date yesterday. I can’t even be mad about her doing that considering it’s my own fault.

“Are you sure it’s yours?” he asks, his voice low and skeptical. A guy on his team just recently went through a paternity scandal, and I have no doubt that’s what he’s thinking about right now.

And I get it, I do. It’s not uncommon in our industry, but I’m choosing to believe Lexi—to trust that she’s not manipulating me, even if that might be stupid.

“I’m sure.”

“You should get a paternity test done. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman tried to con a pro athlete into eighteen years of payments.” He’s got his big brother voice on, and I fight against an eye roll.

“Lexi’s not like that.”

“I’ve heard you say that about a woman before. I’m sure Lexi is nice and everything, but I’m sorry if I don’t trust your judgment right off the bat. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I don’t want that either,” I admit and then tap the back of my head on the headrest of the driver’s seat while I sit at a red light. “I just found out yesterday, so we’re still sorting everything out, but I needed to tell someone.”

“I’m not trying to rain on your news, but I think you need to be smart about this. You know I’m always here for you, little brother.”

“You know you’re not that much older than me, right? And I’m two inches taller, so I’m not really that little.”

He huffs a laugh. “You’ll always be my lil bro no matter how tall or old we get. Deal with it. So, when are you going to tell Mom?”

“I don’t know.”

He hums. “Better do it before the news spreads.”

“You’re the only one I’ve told so far.”

“Yeah, but you’re on your way to your game where you’ll see the guys, and you four are like the weirdest married quartet I’ve ever met. You don’t keep secrets from each other. Hell, they plaster your bromance on billboards.”

“You’re just jealous,” I say with a laugh before saying goodbye and hanging up.

He’s not wrong about us though. We’re a tight-knit group. You have to be if you want to be the best, and we’ve worked our asses off to get to this point in our careers.

I think about my conversation with Tanner the whole way to the stadium. I know he’s right about the paternity test; it’s the smart thing to do. But I abhor the idea of asking Lexi for one, especially after how I fumbled things yesterday. I’m still haunted by the broken look on her face when I got mad at her, and I’d like to avoid ever seeing it again.

Even if a tiny part of me is wondering if maybe he’s right and I’m trusting her too easily.

When I get to the locker room, the guys are already there as other members of our team trickle in. I go straight to my locker and toss in my keys and wallet. Romel glances over at me from his locker right next to mine. I’ve always considered him the dad of our foursome—maybe because he actually is a dad, but he’s also always so steady and put together compared to the rest of us.

“You okay?” he asks.

And apparently he can read minds. Or maybe yesterday’s events are written all over my face. When I focus my attention on him, I notice Gabe and Dom are also looking at me with little furrows on their brows. These guys may be intimidating as hell on the field, but they’re big softies who I know will always have my back.

Romel puts down the socks he’d been about to put on and stares at me. “Okay, what’s up? You’re too quiet, and you’re not smiling.”

That gets a small smile out of me. I grip the back of my neck. “I got some news yesterday.”

Gabe and Dom crowd my other side, essentially blocking us from the rest of our teammates and allowing me to keep my voice low—and this news relatively private. “Lexi came back.”

“Why do I get the feeling that’s not a good thing like you hoped it would be?” Dom asks.

I grip the back of my neck tighter, mentally replaying every moment with her yesterday. “It is a good thing. You know how badly I wanted to see her again, but she’s also pregnant.”

They all stare at me, their jaws dropped. That’s a fair reaction. If anyone was expected to accidentally knock up a chick, it was going to be Dom, not me.

“You’re shitting us,” Gabe says.

I shake my head.

“Fuck, man. That’s huge. I thought you always wrapped up?” Dom says, shock filling his features.

“I did. Accidents happen, I guess.”

“Well, that’s fucking terrifying. Thank God that didn’t happen to me. Before Laney, the thought of kids was a literal nightmare.”

“How are you feeling about it?” Romel asks me, his gaze boring into me like he’s trying to gauge if the words I’m about to say are true or not.

My body relaxes as I let down my guard with my closest friends. “Honestly, I’m fucking overwhelmed. When she came to see me, this was the last thing I expected.” Maybe it shouldn’t have been. The timing was there right in front of me. Why wait so long unless you’re about to drop a bomb on someone?

A part of me hates that she didn’t come back because she wanted to, but because she felt she had to. Has she thought about me at all since we were together? I haven’t had sex since that night because I haven’t been able to get her out of my damn mind.

Now I’m being hit with insecurity after insecurity. I don’t think Lexi is a gold digger; she’s never shown any of the indicators we’ve all learned to look out for, and it was dumb to jump to that conclusion yesterday. If she was, she would’ve come back a lot sooner. My penthouse makes it obvious I make a lot of money.But that still doesn’t mean that she might not have some ulterior motives, as much as I hate doubting her.

I look down at my feet, processing the mix of emotions I’m feeling. “This might sound crazy, but even as overwhelmed as I am and disappointed this is the reason she’s back in my life, I’m glad she is. I’m glad I have another chance to see if what I felt for her that first night was a one-off or the start of something deeper. Is that crazy?”

Romel’s lips lift in a kind smile. “Not at all, man. Sometimes when you know, you know. That said, maybe slow things down a bit and get to know her so you can gauge if she’s being real with you. We all know how easy it is to get taken advantage of in this profession, and I’d hate to see her crush you worse than she did when she left the first time.”

The coaches come into the locker room for our pregame talk, disrupting our conversation, which might be for the best because I definitely need more than a few minutes to tell them about how I messed up with her yesterday and get their advice on how to fix it. Gabe’s woman was skittish when they got together, so he might have some good tips for me, and we all know Dom put his foot in his mouth a time or two—or twenty. Combined, we should be able to come up with a plan to get me back on the right foot with Lexi.Because Romel is right; I need to get to know her, really know her, and I can’t do that if she’s freezing me out.

The game is an easy win, and I’m thankful it didn’t require too much mental focus because I can admit my head wasn’t in the game the way it should’ve been.

As we run off the field and back to the locker rooms, Romel pulls me aside. “I know you said you’re glad she’s back, but you should know, pregnant women are a completely different type of woman. Syd was a ticking time bomb of crying or being angry or being totally in love with me the entire time she was pregnant with Kaylee. It’s a wild roller coaster you’re boarding, so I just want to make sure you’re prepared.”

“You got some advice?”

He pats me on the back. “A ton. First and foremost, the first trimester can be a nightmare as far as sensitivity to smells and food goes. She could be crazy nauseous or not have any morning sickness at all, but you should figure out quick what her triggers are and do everything in your power to banish them from your life immediately.”

“Got it. What else?”

He rubs his jaw. “Have ginger ale and saltines on hand for her. Give her foot rubs and massage her lower back if she’ll let you. Those were Syd’s two places, especially at the end, that always gave her the most pain, but after a little rubdown, she’d melt into the bed and sleep great. Oh!” He grips my shoulder. “If you manage to get her to live with you during the pregnancy, invest in some ear plugs. Syd slept like an angel until about halfway through the second trimester, and then she snored like some deranged, feral monster in one of the mythical books she loved to read. It was terrifying—almost as terrifying as the fact that she could sleep through it most of the time. Just a fair warning.”

I laugh. “I appreciate that.”

“Anytime. Seriously. We dads gotta stick together. Call me anytime, and I’ll help out best I can.”

We dads . My chest expands as his words hit me square in the heart. I’m going to be a dad.

“Thanks, man.” It’s not lost on me that this is the most I’ve heard him talk about Sydney since she died from cancer when Kaylee was just a baby. “You know, there is something I was hoping you and the guys could help me with.”

Romel calls out to Gabe and Dom who are ahead of us as we walk into the locker room.

“What’s up?” Dom asks.

I put my hands on my hips and quickly tell them what happened with Lexi yesterday—after she dropped the pregnancy bomb on me.

Romel closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Damn. I really thought you were smoother than that.”

I drop my chin to my chest before taking a deep breath and looking back at them. “I know. I’m well aware that was not my finest moment, and I’m paying for it. So how do I fix it?”

The guys look at each other and then back at me. Romel puts a hand on my shoulder. “You said she’s a teacher?”

“Yeah.”

A smile grows on his face. “I’ve got an idea.”